Re: Eric Williams, second unit scoring, and the press

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Alex Wang wrote:

> Even though I've been one of the Eric Williams bashers on the list,
> I hope that he does indeed develop into a potent scorer off the bench
> now that he is back with the Celtics. His ability to get to the line
> is very impressive (as is Fortson's, actually). I calculate his
> "scoring efficiency", for what it's worth, as 48% last year as
> opposed to Ron Mercer's 46%, despite Williams shooting a horrendous
> 36.5% from the field. His career efficiency is 50.3%.
>
> It's certainly a change to think of having three guys (Barros, Cheaney,
> Williams) off the bench who have in their careers shown proven ability
> to put the ball in the basket. Contrast with last year where you'd see
> sometimes see a lineup of Barros coupled with a scoring challenged group
> of Riley, Battie, McCarty, and Bowen. The press should be much more
> effective with this new group, since they might actually score enough
> to set it up.

I was excited about the very slimmed down Popeye Jones and his solid
offseason conditioning last year, mainly because all our young forwards could
profit from his great "below the rim" game intelligence and his veteran
insights. Many of us factored in 8 rebounds per game from the new-look Popeye
as part of our 25-30 win pre-season projections.

Burn me once, shame on you...burn me twice, shame on me. I fully realize a
healthy Eric Williams could help the team immensely next season, but IMO he
still flunks both a "risk-benefit" and especially a "cost-benefit" analysis.